i know i need to roast my own beans right before grinding to get the full freshness ... but if i order, say, 4-day old roasted beans from espresso vivace ... how long can i expect those beans to stay "pretty fresh", and "acceptably fresh"?

lots of people seem to sing the praises of their beans by mail, which would lead me to assume that they stay reasonably fresh over time ... even drinking 4 double shots per day, at 0.5 oz per double shot ... a couple pounds of beans would last 16 days. i'm not sure how much espresso people out there drink, but 4 doubles sounds like a lot of caffeine ... it would be closer to 2-3 for me (or about a month for 2 pounds).

also, any tips for prolomnging the life, other than the standard "airtight tupperware in cool dark cabinet"?

Hi J, generally beans stay fresh for about a week. I've found a distinct diffference in freshness after 7 days. After that they are still usable but start to deteriorate. I have also have heard that it is best to leave the beans for approx 24 hours to let them de-gas properly. Apparently you can still use the beans within the first 24 hours but the bean profile needs to be handled differently. I keep my beans in a vacuum sealed plastic container. It has a manual pump on it which you can use to remove air from the container. Hope this helps.

cool, thanks ... yah it's quite helpful. i'm hearing about that range -- one week for "fresh-ish" beans, then deterioration beyond that, with still decent coffee for about another week after that.

i'm calculating in terms of mail ordering from places like vivace ... they ship the same day as roasting, so assuming it takes 2-3 days, that gives me about 5 day of pretty fresh roast, then a week (stretch to 2?) of decent roast. not bad.

at 1/2 oz per double shot, 2 pounds would yield 64 double shots ... at 3 drinks per day, that's 3 weeks, minus a few days spillage, mismeasurement, etc ... just about right!

of course, people have said good things about some trader joe's beans ... nothing like premium, but at a little over $4 per pound for "pretty good" ... not bad.

I am still confused about the best way to store roasted coffee. Ken Davids says to keep it in the freezer http://www.coffeereview.com/reference.cfm?ID=158The Vivace people say the frige is ok. If I buy extra stuff, how should I store it to stay as fresh as possible?What is the point of these 1 kg bags?

When packed under vacuum or flushed with nitrogen, beans seem to keep pretty well - but only until you first open the package. After that, taste goes downhill fast. So, if you're buying professionally sealed beans, they may well keep a month or more after roasting, but once you open the package, you'll still need to finish them off fast before they go stale.In my experience, the freezer is a bad idea. Even if you try your best to make sure no air is left in the package, opening and closing the cold bag nearly always leads to excess moisture. And if you freeze beans in a plain unsealed roll-top bag (the kind you might get from your local roaster) - ick, freezer burn.These are all just my observations... YMMV.

I believe the idea behind freezing is to keep moisture to a minimum. When the freezer is shut, the water vapor freezes and is not prone to collect on beans, whereas in the fridge the temp is above freezing and liquid water vapor is allowed to circulate and find it's way into the bag.No matter how you look at it, air is the major deteriorating factor (unless you live in a very humid part of the world. Hello Mississippi and Louisiana) and is ever pesent.

Barista Guild Member #170Baristas seem like shots of espresso if left to sit too long.They grow cold, bitter and unpalatable.

I believe the idea behind freezing is to keep moisture to a minimum. When the freezer is shut, the water vapor freezes and is not prone to collect on beans, whereas in the fridge the temp is above freezing and liquid water vapor is allowed to circulate and find it's way into the bag.No matter how you look at it, air is the major deteriorating factor (unless you live in a very humid part of the world. Hello Mississippi and Louisiana) and is ever pesent.

Actually, according to Barry Jarrett - roaster of 15 years and owner/operator of Riley's Coffee in Southern Illinois (just east of St. Louis) - freezing is to stop the degassing process, and is only effective if done within an hour or so of roasting (before degassing starts in earnest).

Freezing - according to Barry's tests - will arrest the degassing for up to 6 weeks. Based on instore tests, once degassing has begun in earnest (certainly would apply to mailed beans), the staling process continues even in the freezer, whereas pre-degassing freezing arrests degassing till thawing for up to 6 weeks. Some have claimed to have stretched this to 8 weeks of freezing.

It doesn't require a commercial freezer either.

I have tried this three times now when preparing for vacations, Christmas gift boxes etc. and when we used the beans, we could not distinguish that we had frozen them (and this tongue does recognize stale or poorly... roasted beans). My beans were frozen within 30 minutes of roasting and held 3-4 weeks.

It's a hotly debated topic, and Barry is one of the only guys who I know who has done semi-scientific testing of theory in this and other experimental areas.

By the way...his 4 group LaMarzocca has 3 boilers, and is PIDed to within a degree so they can adjust the temperatures of the E-61 groups (in pairs) for different beans. Best coffee in a shop I've ever had.

The time he freezes is around Christmas when his 5 kilo roaster will not allow him to keep up with customer demand on the fly, because he also operates a retail shop and roasts for other buisnesses, or when he has to roast 5 kilos (10 pounds) of specialty beans or blends that he can not sell quickly enough to prevent staling.

He believes that if you order coffee from a roaster and it arrives within 2-3 days, it's too late to have any advantage by freezing it (again he has tested this since he mails coffee and home made fudge all over the world).

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